Risk Disclosure

The short version

You can lose all of it

The value of a virtual asset is whatever somebody else is willing to pay for it at that moment. It is not backed by a government, a central bank, a reserve of commodities, or the earnings of a business. It can fall to zero and stay there, and some assets have.

Past performance tells you nothing reliable about future performance. A chart that has risen is not a forecast.

Prices move violently

Virtual asset prices commonly move by double digit percentages within a single day, in either direction, for reasons that may never be explained. A move can happen overnight, at a weekend, or while you are asleep, because these markets never close.

In a fast market there may be no buyer at the price you expect. Your order may fill at a materially worse price, or not at all, and the gap between the buying and selling price can widen sharply.

There is no safety net in Ghana

Bank deposits in Ghana have the protection of the Ghana Deposit Protection scheme. Virtual assets do not. No deposit insurance, no investor compensation fund and no government guarantee covers a loss in the value of a virtual asset, the failure of a service provider, or a theft.

Regulatory supervision of a service provider reduces some risks. It does not make you whole if the market falls, and it is not a guarantee against failure or fraud.

Transfers are final

A transfer on a blockchain cannot be reversed, cancelled or recalled, by us, by any service provider, by a bank, by a court or by the network itself. There is no chargeback.

If you send assets to the wrong address, or over the wrong network, or to an address controlled by somebody who deceived you, they are gone. Confirm every address and every network before you confirm a transfer.

Fraud is the largest practical risk

More people lose money to fraud in this market than to price movements. Common patterns include guaranteed return schemes, trading groups that manage your money for you, romance and friendship approaches that arrive at an investment, fake customer support, fake apps, cloned websites, and giveaways that ask you to send assets first.

• Nobody legitimate will ever ask you for your seed phrase, recovery phrase or private key.
• A guaranteed return on a virtual asset is not possible. Anyone who promises one is lying to you.
• Pressure to act quickly, in secret, or outside an official app or website is the clearest warning sign there is.

If something presented to you in HYRO’s name does not match this, report it to security@hyro.to.

Technology and custody risk

• Exchanges, brokers, wallets and custodians can be hacked, can suffer outages, and can fail. Assets held by a third party depend on that third party remaining solvent and competent.
• Software has bugs. A smart contract, a bridge or a network upgrade can fail or be exploited, and losses of that kind are rarely recovered.
• A blockchain can fork, change its rules, lose participants, or become congested. Fees can rise and transactions can be delayed for hours.
• If you self custody, the loss of your keys is the permanent loss of your assets. There is no password reset for a blockchain.
• Internet, mobile network and electricity interruptions can stop you from acting at the moment you most want to.

Regulation can change, and may not favor you

The rules for virtual assets in Ghana and elsewhere are new and still developing. Laws, licensing requirements, tax treatment and permitted activities can change at short notice, and a change can be retrospective in effect.

A change could restrict what you may do, make an asset or a service unavailable to you, force a service to stop operating in your country, or prohibit an activity that was permitted when you began it. No service provider can insulate you from that.

Currency, cost and tax

• Most virtual assets are priced in United States dollars. If you hold cedis, movements in the cedi against the dollar will change your result even when the asset price has not moved.
• Trading fees, spreads, network fees and withdrawal fees reduce your return, and frequent trading can consume it entirely.
• Stablecoins are not guaranteed to hold their value. They depend on the reserves and conduct of their issuer, and some have broken their peg.
• Tax is your responsibility. How a gain or a loss is treated depends on your own circumstances and on the law where you are resident. We do not give tax advice and we do not file anything on your behalf.

Risks specific to HYRO today

HYRO is not open. There is no service to use, nothing to deposit into, and no asset held for anybody.

• We may not launch. A regulatory approval may not arrive, or may arrive with conditions, or commercial circumstances may change.
• We may launch later than any date suggested on this website, with fewer features, with a different fee structure, or in fewer countries.
• Joining the waitlist gives you no entitlement to access, to any benefit, or to compensation if we do not launch.
• Any price, chart or screen on this website is an illustration drawn from third party data. It is not a quote and not an offer.

What this disclosure is not

This is not advice, and it is not a personal recommendation. It does not take account of your income, your obligations, your experience or your objectives, and it is not a complete list of risks.

If you are unsure whether virtual assets are suitable for you, take independent professional advice before you commit anything. If you cannot get comfortable with the risks described here, the right decision is to stay out.